Love and Money (10 page)

“You put too low a value on yourself,” said Isabella.

The wedding, which took place at the earliest possible moment allowed by respect for Mistress Bellomont, surprised Thomas by the shower of gifts and guests it produced—the wedding gifts in particular were quite astonishing, both in costliness and number. Thomas thought a trifle grimly that these might mark the measure of his neighbours' relief that Isabella Lees was marrying Thomas and not one of their own sons—for indeed several had shown an inclination that way—but he did not confide this thought to Isabella, and she took a different view, attributing the gifts to the same cause as Thomas's recent nomination as Justice of the Peace, namely the neighbourhood's respect for him. Thomas smiled kindly at this fancy, which he did not in the least believe, but as the time of the wedding drew nigh, even he had to admit that Isabella and himself seemed both well liked. There was no lack of matrons to offer Isabella the hospitality of their homes and the assistance of their needles, and the Deputy Sheriff of the county himself attended the wedding ceremony. The only disappointment was the
absence of Sir Richard who, though duly notified, neither came nor sent a present.

“We can do without him,” said Thomas staunchly.

But in his heart he was hurt.

Isabella knew this. It was most strange but most delightful to Thomas to find how his young wife knew his inmost heart, and knew how to soothe it.

“It is that odious woman who has somehow prevented him,” said Isabella now. “It can be nothing else, for Sir Richard has always loved you, Thomas.”

“Mistress Brownwood? Why, yes—doubtless you are right,” said Thomas, comforted.

He drew Isabella to him and kissed her. Their great happiness seemed to bathe Mesburgh perpetually in sunshine.

The message from Sir Richard which came a year later arrived at a most inconvenient moment, for Isabella had but just given birth to her son and Thomas was quite frantic at the thought of leaving her.

“I shall not go,” he said, setting his jaw.

“But, Thomas, old Simon says that Sir Richard is ill.”

“Then he is ill. It is no concern of mine.”

“It is a concern of mine, however,” said Isabella softly.

Thomas made a sound betwixt growl and groan.

“I cannot bear to leave you, love,” he said. “Why should I go?”

“Because it is your duty, Thomas, and you are a man who always faithfully performs his duty,” said Isabella.

Thomas growled more loudly, and touched his son's cheek with a gentle finger.

“Well,” he said.

His tone was yielding, and Isabella at once began to discuss plans for his journey—when he should go, what wear, what eat before his departure, when return. He decided to leave Martin at home in charge of the household, and set off early the next morning with old Simon, who was now little but a
bag of bones, toothless, doddering, bald save for a few straying wisps of thin white hair.

“But what is this fever of Sir Richard's?” demanded Thomas irritably as they rode along.

“It is not a fever, begging your pardon, Master Thomas,” replied Simon—it was difficult to make out what he said, his voice being weak and his consonants missing. “ 'Twas more a kind of a thunderstroke. He was playing at gleek, with Mistress Brownwood and a gentleman from Annotsfield”

“Sir John Resmond, perhaps?”

“Oh no,” piped Simon: “Sir John never plays at cards.”

“The less fool he,” muttered Thomas. “Well—go on. What happened?”

Simon maundered along, sprinkling his talk with unfamiliar terms,
tib
and
tiddy
and
mournival \
Sir Richard it seemed had a
mournival
of queens and thought to win but the gentleman from Annotsfield having spoke for the
ruff-

“For heaven's sake, Simon,” said Thomas impatiently: “Quit thy ruffs and mournivals, which mean nothing to me, and tell a plain tale. Sir Richard lost the game, is what thou wouldst say, is it not?”

“Aye—Sir Richard had a mournival of queens, four that is, sir, but the Annotsfield gentleman had four aces,” mourned Simon, shaking his head. “So then Sir Richard sprang up from the table, like, and threw down his cards, and snouted: 'There goes the last of Annotsfield!' ”

“Ah!” exclaimed Thomas involuntarily.

“And he laughed very loudly but it was more like sobs,” continued Simon, “and then suddenly his face changed and he fell down as one dead. He was not dead,” quavered Simon: “But at first he could not speak or move his hand. Now he can speak though it is difficult to cut one word from another, and he bade us send for you. His face is somewhat drawn still,” concluded the old man.

That this was most sadly true, Thomas found when he was ushered into his uncle's bedchamber. A deep pang pierced his heart as he looked down at the wreck of his once
handsome and debonair uncle. The left side of Sir Richard's face drooped, and his eyelid twitched continually. But aside from these results of the thunderstroke (which was a disaster might happen to any man, thought Thomas staunchly) his uncle's person showed the deterioration which the years of drinking and gambling and Mistress Brownwood had brought upon him. The fine clear cheek was marred by creeping veins, the handsome eyes were rimmed with red; the forehead was deeply lined, the curly dark hair lustreless; moreover an expression of weariness and disillusionment dragged at his mouth; he looked an angry resentful disappointed man. Thomas was very disagreeably affected; for even in this state Sir Richard's countenance showed its resemblance to Isabella's, while by contrast with her fair young beauty, now so familiar to him, her father's marred looks seemed even more horrible.

“Well, Tom,” said Sir Richard in a slurred but still strong speech. “Give me thy hand, lad.”

Thomas obeyed, and was saddened again to feel the blood leaping irregularly in his uncle's once powerful fingers.

“Raise me on these pillows.”

Thomas performed this office with the skill born of experience with his mother. Sir Richard glanced at him shrewdly. They exchanged a few words on Thomas's journey. Then Sir Richard, looking aside, said in a careless tone:

“I shall not be here much longer to keep you out of Bellomont, Thomas.”

Thomas was still searching for something honest to say to this when his uncle spoke again.

“I fear you may be disappointed about the land, Tom. Annotsfield is all gone. Annotsfield, Annotsfield! I've grown to hate the sound of the name. Resmond always wanted me to sell him part of Annotsfield—no other land would serve.”

“Is it very rich land there?” asked Tom.

“There is a township on it which grows. Well, it is all Resmond's now. The last few acres went in that accursed
game—they were a close at the end of Eastgate. And there are those two girls to provide for. Isabella, Isabella—I always think of them as half a mournival of Isabellas—but what the deuce are their other names?”

“Isabella Lees and Isabella Brownwood,” said Thomas.

“Aye. I cannot leave them portionless, Tom, even if it means robbing you. Try not to hate me, lad.”

“I could never hate you, Uncle Richard,” said Thomas. “Though it would be false to pretend I do not grieve for the land, I shall always be grateful in my heart to you.”

“Grateful? For what? Tom, dost know thou hast grown into a very well-looking fellow? Thou'rt almost handsome, with a smile and an air thou hadst not as boy. Art happy, Tom? Is life good, my lad?”

“Very good,” said Thomas, smiling. His thoughts being thus naturally turned to Isabella, he said: “We were grieved that you did not come to the wedding, uncle.”

“The wedding? What wedding?” Reading his answer in Tom's look, he exclaimed with an oath: “I heard of no wedding. 'Tis that Brownwood customer has kept the tidings from me. So thou hast changed thy condition, eh? Who hast wed, then, Tom?”

“Why, your Isabella,” said Thomas, quite astounded at the thought of his marrying anybody but Isabella: “Isabella Lees, who else?”

Sir Richard stared at him, then suddenly began to laugh. He threw himself back on his pillows; great peals of raucous laughter rang out from his throat, his mouth gaping and shaking unpleasingly.

“Well done, Tom! Well done!” cried Sir Richard. “Hast tricked them all!”

The laughter went on and on, louder and louder until Thomas's head rang with the sound, then it rose suddenly into a wild groaning shout and Sir Richard fell silent. For a moment his eyes shone up at Tom with their old merry sparkle, then the lids dropped and Sir Richard's life was ended.

“Don't you ever dare to raise your hand to me, miss!” said Mistress Brownwood in a loud bullying tone. “I'll teach you if you raise your hand to me again! What! You'd put your tongue out at me, would you? Take that!”

Thomas could not but hear the sound of a sharp slap, though he knocked loudly in the hope of preventing it.

There was a pause before a very genteel voice bade him come in, and when he entered the room which had been Mistress Brownwood's for so many years, he saw the reason for the pause. Captain Brownwood's widow and her daughter were arranged in a charming family group, the young girl leaning against her mother, whose arm encircled her maternally. The second Isabella's pale cheek glowed where her mother's hand had caught it, however, and her eyes, light blue like her mother's, burned with an intensity of hatred which horrified Thomas. In fact he found he disliked the child heartily; long and thin and pale, with a long thin nose and a long thin mouth, a pale pasty complexion and pale lank hair, she was plain enough, heaven knew, but it was not her plainness which disturbed him—after all, he was no beauty himself, thought Thomas—but the glare of malice in her eyes.

“Pray be seated,” said her mother.

Thomas, reflecting not without satisfaction—of which however he was ashamed—that it was his own chair she was inviting him to take, bowed politely and sat down.

“We have suffered a great grief,” said Mistress Brownwood in a lachrymose tone.

“Sir Richard was a most noble-minded and chivalrous gentleman,” said Thomas, preferring to sound over-zealous rather than equate her grief with his own. She was such a bloated, painted, sluttish wreck of a woman that he could hardly bear to look at her; it sickened him to think of his uncle living in her company for fifteen years—“and all by my fault,” sorrowed Thomas. Well, that burden must be borne. 82

“You are of course your uncle's heir-in-chief,” said Mistress Brownwood impatiently, “being his nearest kinsman.”

“Yes. My uncle has, however, made ample provision for his daughters.”

“His daughters? What daughters? ” shrilled Mistress Brownwood.

Observing her angry flush, Thomas understood that she was furious at the failure of her plan to make Sir Richard forget Joanna's daughter. In fact it had served precisely to impress her existence on his mind. “Half a mournival of Isabellas,“ thought Thomas with a rueful smile.

“This young lady,” he replied with a courteous inclination towards the pale child, “and—” he hesitated, because he hated to mention his Isabella in the same breath as her horrid namesake, but screwed himself to it: “my wife.”

“Your wife?” said Mistress Brownwood, pretending ignorance, though it was clear to Thomas that both she and the child were perfectly aware of the circumstances of his marriage.

“Isabella Lees has become my wife.”

“Ah! You married Sir Richard's elder daughter,” sneered Mistress Brownwood. “So you will take her portion. That was clever of you.”

“I shall not forgive you that speech,” thought Thomas, but aloud he said courteously: “I am indeed most fortunate and happy in my marriage.”

“Well! Let us come to the point,” said Mistress Brownwood with impatience. “Your uncle's will. You have the land and the house.”

“Yes. And I must request you, madam, to make your preparations for leaving Bellomont with all due speed,” said Thomas. “I do not wish to put you to inconvenience, but I must ask you to be gone by the end of this month. So that my wife and I may come here,” he concluded. He was thinking only of his longing to set to work on Bellomont, to have it cleaned and repaired and restored to its former beauty, but he saw that Mistress Brownwood took his remark
as a reflection on her virtue, for her pale eyes flickered angrily. Thomas considered this and found that he did not care, but he added in a tone he strove to make kind: “My steward will inform you of the moneys set apart for your daughter and the times for paying them, and will also supply your immediate necessities.”

“My daughter, my daughter!” cried Mistress Brownwood fretfully: “Always my daughter! Do not delay and draw out, Master Thomas, do not beat so about the bush! What hath Sir Richard left
to me?”

“Nothing, madam,” said Thomas.

Mistress Brownwood's jaw dropped and she gaped at him in horror. The cold laugh which tinkled through the room came from Isabella the second, who pinched her mother's arm and cried triumphantly:

“The money's mine!”

Thomas, bowing his way out, reflected that Mistress Brownwood, living on her daughter's provision, though it was ample would do ample penance for her sins.

Old Simon came doddering towards him to say that Sir John Resmond had called to offer his condolences. Thomas greeted the owner of Annotsfield coldly. After uttering a few conventional phrases about Sir Richard, Sir John offered his assistance to the new master of Bellomont, if Thomas should require any advice in the management of his estates—still large in spite of Sir Richard's depredations. Thomas bowed but made no answer.

“I fear you have unfriendly feelings towards me, cousin,” said Resmond.

“I may have feelings, but you have Annotsfield,” retorted Thomas.